Harry Vanquishing LV without killing him.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 146536

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister"
<gbannister10 at t...> wrote:
> 
> Geoff:
> ...edited...
> 
> I accept that Caesarean section can be considered to be "not of
> woman born" but **no way** did Birnam wood come to Dunsinane.  
> I might just as well pick up a branch in my local wood and claim
> that I am a tree - which I'm not! ...
>

bboyminn:

Actually, Birnam Wood did literally come to Dunsinane Hill. Here in
the midwest of the USA, we don't refer to a stand of trees as 'a wood'
we call it 'a woods' as in my brother and I went walking in the woods.
 Wood is a bunch of sawed up boards harvested from trees. Now I'm only
maginally knowledgable with the story of MacBeth, but I'm pretty sure
in the story 'wood' from the forest of Birnam did make an appearance
at Dunsinane Hill. 

Back to Harry, I think the point that is trying to be made here is
that prophecies are not always what they seem. It seems impossible
that the forest at Birnam could ever come to Dunsinane Hill. Trees
don't march, they don't move, but wood from those trees can move. 

Now we have to find some alternative interpretations of Trelawny's
prophecy about Harry and the Dark Lord. First, it doesn't mention
Voldemort by name. Some have interpreted 'the Dark Lord' as Snape;
Snape kills Voldemort, tries to take over as the /next/ Dark Lord, and
Harry kills Snape. I don't believe that, but can we actually say that
the Prophecy rules it out? 

'Either must die at the hand of the other', but 'either' and 'other'
are only assumed. We jump to the obvious and logical choice, but like
the witches prophecy of MacBeth, the obvious isn't always correct.
Maybe 'either' means either Harry or Neville must die at the hand of
the 'other' meaning Voldemort, or that Voldemort must die at the hand
of either Harry or Neville. Maybe 'neither can live while the other
survives' means that Harry and Voldemort can't live while Neville
survives. Again, I don't believe that, but can we say with absolute
certainty that the Prophecy does NOT say that? 

So, the point is that the obvious and logical interpretation of
MacBeth's prophecy is indeed *no one* and *never*, but the reality, as
observed after the fact, is that these obvious assumptions have very
unobvious loopholes. Now the question is can we find similar unobvious
be yet reasonable loopholes in Trelawny's Prophecy?

I think there have certainly been many alternative interpretations of
the wording of the Prophecy; I've given some examples. However, I'm
not sure how reasonable or likely any of these alternate
interpretations are. Though I admit I'm open to any alternative
interpretations, reasonable or otherwise, that people might like to
speculate. 

Just passing it along.

Steve/bboyminn